


That's The Beauty Of A Secret

by softsocks (orphan_account)



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Cuddling, Hidden Relationship, High School AU, Late Night Conversations, M/M, Mentions of drugs, Popular!Dan, Protective!Dan, Rich!Dan, Secret Relationship, Secrets, Sexual Themes, Smoking, Smut, Spot The Slight TMI reference, Swearing/Course Language, musings, sorry if you do
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-08
Updated: 2015-12-08
Packaged: 2018-05-05 15:09:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5379794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/softsocks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'You know you're supposed to keep it'</p><p>Phil loves being the only one to touch Dan. But sometimes, keeping their relationship in the dark, facing all the rumors from his peers - it can hurt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	That's The Beauty Of A Secret

**Author's Note:**

> BASED OFF 'Strange Love' BY HALSEY. TITLE TAKEN FROM THE SAME SONG.

He hears whispers as he passes through the halls, hushed voices wondering what he did, if the rumours were true or just false fabrications.

If he and the king of the school had sex in the boy's bathroom, if they were truly high on real feelings or just synthetic esctasy fuelling through the blood in their veins. He remembers how it had felt to have those gorgeous, strong, tan fingers running through his dark locks, short nails scraping across his scalp, pleasure coursing through every thread of his muscles.

He wonders if they heard about that, or if that is one thing he gets to keep to himself.

He chuckles quietly, as he wanders through the school, amused at how caught up in  _his_ love life all of his classmates are. How boring their own lives must be if they're so interested in his.

He'd find it almost stupid, if he wasn't so curious himself.

* * *

"Token number three for the night." Dan says, flicking the clip of the lighter. The flames that spark are bright orange with tones of red, and they illuminate his face when he holds it up to the cigarette held between his pink, kiss-swollen lips.

Phil bites on the inside of his cheek, before taking the lighter Dan offers him. He can't help but worry over what the people at school are saying about him. He wishes he could be like Dan, care-free, strutting through the school like he owns it - which he practically does, in terms of where the student population is concerned.

He hopes that Dan doesn't notice, but he gets the feeling his concern does not go unnoticed. He sees brown eyes flicker up, staring into the deepest parts of his soul, and he swallows the knot in his throat, exhaling the smoke so it doesn't completely enter his lungs.

"What's the time?" He asks instead, dragging on the smoke between his fingers.

"Just past two," Dan says, sneaking a glance at his phone. There is no denying which 'two' he means, the stars above their heads twinkling with a bright light that breaks through the blanket of darkness the night creates.

Phil nods, and then they lapse back into a calm silence. There's a tension to the air that even Phil can sense, and any hope of pretending he's fine is immediately squashed.

"What's bothering you?" Dan asks, sliding his hand across the picnic blanket they're lying on so it's squeezing Phil's.

"Nothing." Phil says immeditely, because the last thing he wants to do is bother Dan. The only reason they're out at such late hours is to spend some alone time with each other, to share intimate moments where no one else can see.

"Phil," Dan says slowly, and Phil sighs. He takes a long drag on his cigarette, taking the time to mull over how to express the mess of emotions raging a war inside of him. The smoke burns a faint trail in his throat, and he uses it as a grounding force.

"Doesn't it ever bother you?" He asks, looking at the shadows on the grass instead of the worry lines undoubtedly etched into Dan's features.

Dan doesn't speak, and Phil shakes his head slowly.

"Don't worry about it."

"No, I want you to tell me. You're worrying me a little now." Dan says, brushing his fingers across Phil's knuckles. His cigarette is almost burnt to a stub, so he grounds it in the dirt, twisting it until the embers extinguish.

"Isn't it ... doesn't it annoy you, even a little bit, to hear all those people at school talking about us?"

"What's there to talk about?" Dan asks, hoping for a joke.

His relationship with Phil is a secret that only they know - they aren't 'out' at school, they're barely civil there, because Dan is the popular prince of the institution, with a fragile reputation he had taken years to build up. Rich, and from a well-known family, he can't afford to lose what sway he has at school, because it'd all come back to his parents, through country clubs and dyed-blonde housewives with their noses stuck in the air and an underlying delighted scorn in their tone. Rumors from wives of CEO's and retired football players are tales his mother could dismiss with a wave of her perfectly manicured hands.

But if the news that her eldest and most beloved son is not only gay, but "fornicating" with the "goth loser" of the school - his parent's words, not his - reaches her he'd not only be disowned, but likely thrown out on the streets without a dime to his name.

He just needs to wait out the last few months until his graduation, where his savings account would be opened and a quarter of his parent's fortune would be legally his. Then, he could transfer funds into his own account and he and Phil could escape to an apartment in London or Manchester, away from the prying eyes of his parents and their classmates.

"They're whispering about us." Phil says, his voice aching with the pressure speaking the words aloud bring.

"They talking about whether we had  _fucked_  in the boy's bathroom, spreading rumors about if we were on  _drugs_..."

Phil groans, his throat vibrating with the low sound. "They're more interested in our love life than I think I am, and it doesn't even concern them."

"Then don't let it." Dan says, taking the almost burnt-out cigarette from Phil's hand and rubbing it in the ground with the remains of his own. He leans closer, his eyes locked on Phil's as he swings a leg over, straddling Phil's hips.

"It has nothing to do with them." He states, running his hand underneath Phil's shirt, up his ribs.

"What we do, in our  _private_ lives," He continues, lifting the hand that is still linked with Phil's so it's stretched above their heads.

"Is  _our_ business, and it has nothing to do with those bastards. I could care less what they think, and so should you."

Dan grinds down on Phil's hips, just a small movement, but it's enough to have Phil gasping underneath him.

"I love you, you know?" He says, leaning down to kiss the side of Phil's neck, scraping his teeth along the soft, pale skin.

"I know. I love you, too." Phil says, between sharp inhales of air and striking stabs of pleasure.

"Good." Dan says, tilting up to kiss Phil, slowly and surely. "Then that's all that matters."

* * *

Dan's gripping his hips, thrusting upwards, his head thrown back into the pillow as a moan tears through his throat. He's gasping out Phil's name through a high-tilted laugh, and Phil can feel his worries and concerns float away. The tension in his back melts away with the sweat dripping down his spine, and he loses himself in how Dan feels below him, in the warmth and the love he can feel seeping into the deepest corners of his skin.

In that moment, with his heart wrapped in the soft caress of Dan's touch, he doesn't care what anyone says about him. Let them say whatever they want, because at the end of the day, he's the one who gets the hottest guy in school in  _his_ bed.

Not anyone else.

* * *

Phil's fingers are cold as they trail over the fog-covered window, sketching a story of hearts and stars and lyrics that are almost unreadable. Dan's eyeing him curiously, but he's silent as the images break through the frost of the glass.

There's something heavy hanging in the air, which worries Dan, because he thought Phil was okay, or at the very least, calm enough that he wasn't stressing about how their relationship looked on the outside. He wishes they could be open at school, wants nothing more. But he's been ducking from the scrutinising gazes from his parents from the time he was ten, possibly before then, and he can't just pop out of a cake in a feather boa now.

Phil keeps tracing, and it gets to the point where he can't feel the ends of his fingers, but he can't find any ounce of him that gives a damn. It doesn't matter what he draws by this point, doesn't matter where the story starts.

It's always going to end the same.

* * *

Dan's decided that it doesn't matter, if people don't know about him and Phil. They're relationship is theirs, and they don't have to tell anyone anything about themselves if they don't want to. They think Phil's strange and weird, and that Dan's just as stuck up as his parents.

And they can think that all they like, because Dan doesn't care.

"It's a great thing, a beautiful thing even, you know?" He says one day, when he and Phil are curled up in the back of Phil's old beaten down sedan. The seats are so much more comfortable than they are in his poxy, man-in-his-mid-life-crisis-bought-this car.

"What is?" Phil asks, placing a kiss on Dan's collarbone, his head nestled in the crook of his shoulder and neck.

"A secret." Dan whispers, stroking a hand along the soft skin of Phil's back, underneath his shirt.

"It's something held between few people, in our case two, a small treasure that's unseen and unknown to the outside world. It's something we get to keep all to ourselves, and we don't have to tell anybody else anything because it's none of their damn business."

Phil stills, before curling his fingers against the naked strip of skin above the waistband of Dan's jeans.

"And because it's our secret," Dan adds softly. "We don't have to share it."

Phil nods slightly, although the move is more of a nuzzle. Dan kisses the top of his head, and they lie like that, just huddled together, with the soft strains of the current CD in Phil's radio. Dan's certain that he's said enough to ease Phil, just a little bit, because Phil isn't saying anything else and he appears to have relaxed a little.

Phil still doesn't believe Dan though, because how could he? It's alright for Dan to say all of those things, he's got nothing to worry about by keeping them a secret. But Phil feels like he's losing Dan, piece by piece, like their relationship is stripping down to a tiny thread and with one wrong move they'll snap because the tension is too strong.

But he doesn't say anything, because he doesn't want to overthrow his balance and fall off.

* * *

"I heard, he managed to make Dan s _cream._ "

Those are the first words Phil hears as he enters his form room. He shakes his head, almost pitifully. He wonders, providing it keeps going on, these stupid rumours, if he'll get to the point where he doesn't care.

At the moment, he's not focusing on it, simply because he's too excited to waste his time worrying about anybody else. He and Dan have a date tonight, an actual, proper date. They're going to the cinema to watch the new Marvel movie - because they're both nerds on the inside, and it's doubtless they'll see anyone from school - at a midnight screening, where the theatre will be dark and they'll have most of the space to themselves.

It was Dan's way of trying to ease Phil's concerns, to reassure to him that their relationship is important, and that he's sorry they have to keep it a secret.

It's working, although he won't mention for a while, after he's gotten some more things out of it - snacks at the movie and a few nice kisses, for example. He's not as bothered, for the simple fact that he has no control over it. People are going to talk about them if they want to, and while it still upsets him, he wants to focus on the good things.

Of course the nagging little voice in the back of his mind, permanent resident of his mental peanut gallery, will always be there, even if it has taken a backseat position for the time being.

It still troubles him a little, but there's something satisfying about knowing that  _he's_ in a relationship with Dan, that regardless of any rumors, they're together and in love.

The people who gossip about them are just all so bothered by the fact that  _Phil_ , bottom-deep in Tartarus on the scale of the school hierachy, can make  _Dan_ , the king who walks like a God  _weak._

And there's a sense of satisfaction that comes with the knowledge that they have no idea how correct they actually are.

* * *

Dan doesn't tell Phil, because they haven't brought it up again, and Dan doesn't want to make the elephant in the room completely visible if he's the only one who can see it.

But he's starting to understand what Phil's been concerned about.

He hears it now, when he struts through the halls, entourage of pathetic followers flanking him by all sides. The hushed threads of gossip that rush from the mouth of one to the ears of another.

To his ears. And he hates it.

The way they talk about Phil ... like he's nothing, like he's worthless and the simple idea of him even touching Dan is ridiculous, something to marvel and laugh at. They think the idea is ludicrous, that Dan would be stupid to even consider the idea. That Phil is strange, a loser, as far away from Dan on the scale of popularity as is physically possible.

His fist clenches unconsciously when he hears someone actually  _laughing_ at a comment about how Phil would never register to Dan as attractive, even if the apocalypse was raining down on them and most of the world was desecrated. His teeth grit together, grinding down until they make scraping noises.

"Dan, are you okay, man?" One of his  _'_ friends _'_ , Jordan, asks.

Dan exhales through a gap between his lips, reminding himself that now is not the time, not the place.

"I'm fine." He grinds out, and he doesn't care if Jordan doesn't believe him, he has much more important things on his mind.

He's going to stop these rumours, somehow.

* * *

"Something's seriously up with you, dude." Jordan says, taking a fry from his plate and popping into his mouth.

"I told you, Jordan, I'm fine." Dan replies, snapping on the name. The voices echoing around the cafeteria are pressing in on him from all sides, and he's once again reminded that all of them have likely, at one point or another, talked about him and Phil as if they actually  _know._

"No, you're not. Just, tell me."

"Do you ever feel, like you just don't know people like you thought you did?" Dan asks, hoping Jordan won't read too far into it.

"I just don't ... I don't feel like I'm really getting along with anybody anymore, like I'm just seperated from everyone."

"I'll try not to take offence to that." Jordan jokes, and Dan's reminded that, even if Jordan had spread rumors, or even if he still was, he wasn't the kind of person to believe them.

He was popular because, unlike Dan, he was a soccer superstar, a god among sports who the teachers were practically in love with. He'd never been anything but nice to Dan, and to other people, really. He wasn't the kind of person to shout unecessary taunts - and neither was Dan - and he always had a smile on his face.

Jordan was a laid-back, relaxed kind of guy who took everything with a grain of salt and hardly ever took offence at anything. He made fun of himself and joined in when everyone was laughing  _at him,_ and although Dan couldn't be certain, he thought there were a few times when Jordan had grimaced at a rude thing somebody else had said.

"But I get what you mean." Jordan adds, a lot more serious than he usually is. "It can be hard to like many people around here."

Dan nods slowly, wondering if that is where the conversation will end.

"This isn't about ... it's not about the things people have been saying about you and Lester, is it?" Jordan asks, and there's a gleam in his eyes that causes Dan to think he  _knows_ , he's just being careful about it.

"What do you mean?" He asks, digging his thumb into the middle of his palm, his hand thankfully hidden beneath the table.

"You and I both know that people have been ... implying a relationship between the two of you." Jordan says carefully. "And I was just wondering if that was bothering you or something."

"It doesn't ... it's not bothering me." Dan whispers.

"You know, if it happens to be true - which I'm not saying it is - it's not going to matter to me."

Dan doesn't speak, choosing instead to stare at the food on his plate and try not to suffocate in the heavy silence.

"You're still one of my best mates, Dan." Jordan says, and Dan thinks he might just crack if Jordan keeps talking.

"And, the rumors having any truth in them ... I honestly couldn't care less who you're with. As long as, you know, you don't leave me and turn into a dick like half of the people at this school, and you still make it to my games. That's still important to me."

Jordan laughs, hoping to ease the tension. "If you skip my games just to hook up with Lester, though, it will be the last straw and the end of our friendship as you know it."

Dan laughs too, and it feels nice. He'd been so worried, but now he knows that at least one person, apart from Phil, is on his side.

"I'm not confirming or denying anything." Dan says, speaking like he's preparing to sign a life-or-death contract.

"But, say it was true, it'd still be a secret ... just kept between us."

Jordan nods. "Of course, I'd never spill. That's a breach of trust, I ... I'd never do that. I thought you knew me as a nicer person than that."

Dan shrugs sheepishly. "I'm sorry, Jor, you know I didn't mean it like that."

"I know." Jordan nods. "I get it. I've never been through it, but whatever is, or isn't, going on between you isn't anybody else's business."

Dan doesn't speak, but there's a wave of mutual understanding that eases his concerns, just a little.

* * *

Dan and Phil both decide - after hours of deep, emotional and tough-to-swallow conversation, as well as a few more of soft kisses and apologies written with tongues on warm, salty skin - that keeping them a secret, with the exception of Jordan of course, is the best idea.

But not for the reasons they'd had previously.

Because, with only a few months of school left anyway, announcing their relationship would cause unecessary strife and stress, that neither of them really want. There's a secret thrill in knowing that everything they do is only hearsay coming from anyone else.

And, now that Jordan knows, it feels less like a dirty little secret, and more like a small detail they're just neglecting to mention.

They look at each other at school now, and have small talk in passing every other day. No one dares mention anything about it, because if they even linger a gaze for too long, Dan glares with a heat like lava, and Jordan crosses his arms over his chest, his biceps bulging slightly from beneath his shirt. Between the two of them, they manage to keep things at a discreet level.

Dan and Phil go on more dates, less concerned with whether anybody will see them, but still careful. By the time his parents work out what's going on, Dan figures he'll be too far away for them to reach him.

And if he's not ... he doesn't really care that much.

He doesn't need his parent's money as much as he needs Phil.

**Author's Note:**

> So this is a new thing I've tried out. Thoughts?


End file.
